We're busy constructing what we think will be the most extensive and comprehensive online training for folks looking to start their own profitable regenerative agriculture. We're passionate about Making Small Farms Work, and this training builds and extends on our book and dedication to helping others get started on their pathway. We've filmed over 100 clips in the field as well as a bunch of whiteboard based lectures and computer based tutorials, created customizable planning and business spreadsheets and a whole load of other resources.

The training will revolve around the pragmatic approach we have towards designing, installing, managing and monitoring our own successful operations. We're in a very challanging cilmate from a geographical, economic and regulatory standpoint. Whilst we focus on our situation, most of the content is adaptable and relevent to anyone setting out on this pathway for themselves.

We're hoping to release the training early in the new year.​If this is something that you are looking for, you can register interest by dropping us a line here, and we can contact you when the training is online. We also want YOUR input. Have a look at the overview below and let us know in the comments if there is subject matter you'd value being included in the training.

Downloadable customizable enterprise and planning spreadsheets to get you started

Other important links and resources

Access to annual video/ content updates

You can have a say in future updates

Investment for the training

We expect the price to be 8995.00 SEK

Overview of content

What are your thoughts?

We aim to keep this training as pragmatic and functional as possible. Whilst we work as professional educators and designers, we also farm for a living. We understand the importance of getting straight to the point. There is no wild abstract theoretical nonsense here, just design and implementation strategies, shared insight and planning tools to get you started on the right footing.​Please let us know if you want to be updated with the release of the training and comment below on aspects you feel are of most value to you.Thank you so much, hope to see you on the inside!

Reflecting back on my life journey that has led me to this point, I take a moment to ponder where we are at as a species, and what has really changed in my short window into the world. It feels poignant to consider all the thought, care and attention that is invested in creating a farm worthy of people’s interest, worthy of a future and perhaps worth my children taking it on. With my second child on the way what sort of a world can I expect my children to inherit? A basic question we probably all share, and yet humans are still casting a big shadow over planet Earth right now; billions of people that make up the population are failing to be acceptably housed, clothed, educated or employed in meaningful work. When I consider the complexity and the fragility of the miracle of life on Earth I feel it is probably fair to assume that is still the rate of affluent nations consumption that casts this shadow, not really the numbers of our population. Whilst the affluent people of this earth, ourselves included, enjoy lifestyles that imposes a grossly disproportionate pressure on planetary ecosystems, our over development through our technological advances has sped up the use, and misuse, of the Earth’s resources and now this shadow stems from all of us, darkening our lives. We have destroyed so much of the soil on earth, even that which was marginal at best, and continue the rampage to the tune of billions of tons per year. This most precious resource, the very foundation of life on terra firma, is being washed and blown away each year largely as a result of industrial agriculture to which we all contribute by way of our consumption patterns. The resulting deforestation, habitat destruction and poor water management, which is one of the biggest limiting factors in agriculture, means that in the next decades we can expect to lose much more of our remaining arable land if we choose to continue, whilst populations continue to grow and stretch the seams of the exhausted resource base. The massive problems with deforestation, particularly in the tropics where nutrients are held up in the plants rather than the soil like in our temperate climates, is happening with a zest that will leave very little for my children’s generation.

​I see continued destruction in all other areas; in the oceans we continue to ravage fishery after fishery, and the great mammals of the sea are all following the sad track to the whales. Seas all over the globe are now awash with plastic particles that attract and suspend heavy metals in a dangerous soup that is absorbed by plankton and then makes its way up the food chain to toxic high levels in the pelagic fish species which we tend to eat. The effects of nuclear pollution will play out for decades or longer, no doubt. The lakes and rivers are virtually all polluted all across the globe, many of the great rivers no longer flowing year round to the sea. We are using the skies as dust bins and filling bigger and bigger holes in the ground with other toxic waste products of an increasingly consumerist industrial world. We have upset the carbon dioxide balance in the atmosphere triggering global weirding and the unpredictable extreme weather events that threaten agriculture more than anything. People are cashing in on that too, from carbon taxing to green waves of consumerism leaving us in a fuzzy place consuming just as many products of slightly more ecologically minded makeup; yet never actually encouraging the radical notion of a widespread limit to consumption.

Obviously this overtaxing of the world’s resources leads to increased conflicts and ultimately breakdown of political, economic and social systems. So this cloud over the Earth, this long shadow, feels like the darkest and the deepest it has been during my short life. Whilst the debate is really over for ‘peak’ everything and climate change, we inhabit a paradoxical state where increasing amounts of positive media and diverse opinion carry risk of forgetting consumption still exponentially increases all the while. The hopes of democratized media through new digital channels has really proved a double edged sword, where scandal and control still pervades, and fleeting unsubstantiated opinions often quickly cement into “fact”. It does, however, give birth to a breeding ground and an opportunity to engage in a new conversation about the world we wish to live in and indeed bequeath our children with. And the question ultimately, for me, is can we turn from a world of war to a world of peace and respectful relating? From patterns of dominance to a model of cooperation, from violence to healing? From empire to global village community?

It seems evident to me that the leaders of political and corporate powers in the modern world are really incapable of providing the necessary leadership inthis great work, so we have to look at local solutions and look for new dynamic leadership. That is a gift which anyone can choose, as indeed so many of us already are. These problems began long ago when our ancestors put aside their more egalitarian and gender balanced ways of earlier human society to establish the rule of dominion by bow and sword, and since that there has been a brutal competition for power that has created a restless play or die, rule or be ruled dynamic of violence and oppression. Conquest, therefore, has became a measure of greatness where male vengeful gods replaced forgiving goddesses, and the wisdom of the elders and priestesses gave way to the all-powerful kings and queens of the hall. People lost, (and were often forced to lose) their attachment to the earth as societies became divided by the ruler and ruled.

This happened many thousands of years ago in Mesopotamia in the land we call Iraq today and there is evidence, such as from the work of James de Meo and Jared Diamond, indicating that intense and rapid climate change is undoubtably linked to rapid cultural shifts from Matriarchal to Patriarchal warring societies, where the first waves of armoured patriarchs come from there rapidly changing desert regions in the Sahara and central Asia; once the bread basket of the world. Lush Savannahs dense with animals and abundance that are now barren and bear witness to some of the most violent societies on earth. In the area that is now at the eastern end of the Mediterranean, where sea levels rose incredibly quickly as the Bosporus flooded, displacing countless communities, people had to fight neighbours for basic resources. We see archaeological evidence of plump, forgiving female goddess figures suddenly replaced with male vengeful archetypes. This occurred all the way east through to what is now Pakistan, where river systems changed their courses leaving people to fight over limited resources. It is not hard to imagine major cultural shifts when we imagine the world of abundance we have always known suddenly shattered; trust in the all providing entities undermined. Modern history illustrates how people will most often descend into a basic conditioned self- survivalist mentality when faced with grave risk. Since that early fateful turn away from earth community, imperial institutions have been systematically denying humanity to the vast majority of humans, instead reducing them to conditions of servitude whilst elevating the most power driven and ethically challenged among us to the highest positions. The era of empire would seem to be reaching the limits of what people on earth can tolerate now, and social, ecologicaland economic break down that is happening around us are just manifestations of this. In these last several thousand years we have seen the primary institutional form of empire move from city states of ancient times to the imperial nation states of the modern era and now the imperial global corporations that have been emerging and entrenching their positions in my short lifetime.

Personally, I find that really quite radically scary because they appear beyond, or possibly replacing assumed roles of government, and that pattern of dominance and exclusion remains constant. Radical and potentially devastating change that will shift the economic advantage from global corporations to local communities is perhaps the inevitable benefit ofany deep economic breakdown, energy crises or heavy climate change impacts. Obviously without oil life on earth will look very different. Long haul transportation and global supply chains will have to become relics of a dying era, and vast sprawling suburban landscapes and out-of-town shopping based on car dependency will have to diminish. Perhaps of greater consequence; oil based agricultural will have to end. Increasingly people are aware that many fertilisers and agrochemicals are based on pure oil products, yet we still rely so heavily upon this production chain. And thus the resulting wars to secure access to more cheap oil to keep the whole thing growing and perpetuating. History continuously reminds us we will likely see a lot more wars for the last remaining resources. The consequences of climate change will only be exacerbated in this time, the resulting shorter or less predictable growing seasons and loss of global crop yields will no doubt affect the poorest people on earth the most. Water shortages are hitting wider regions in more countries and that brings about things like forest fires and famines, which lead to disease epidemics. The ensuing endemic resource wars, uncontrolled migration and continually growing trade gap in major world economies is another indication of people living way beyond their means, and running up a credit card debt to the rest of the world, which will obviously be left to our children.

If we allow this situation to continue to the “last man standing” competition for the final resources that remain we can surely only anticipate further escalations of military conflict, terrorism and deeper societal fragmentation. Was that not so after the fall of the Roman Empire? Everything is always changing, but does it not somehow still all look the same? We really have a choice to bring forth a new era. An era grounded in the principles of community, cooperation, justice, ecological awareness and nonviolence. Unfortunately it seems the ability to make the obvious choice for life is seriously hampered by the ill-advised economic policies of the military-industrial-globalist think-tanks that have taken over and hijacked the modern political system. The commitment to the elitist agenda of imperial wars and occupations in the name of peace and democracy still gives priority to corporate profits at the expense of people, their communities and nature. These stories are alarmingly embedded in all of us. The idea of our western democratic life is bred into us at such a young age, but when I look around I do not really see much evidence of any such thing as democracy. Just look at wartime rhetoric, which follows the same pattern over the last century, in the repeated assertion that we only intervene with other nations to promote peace and democracy, human rights or economic justice. Fortunately more and more people understand this to be blatantly false.

​Yet it shall be said, we are species of many incredible possibilities; so many gifts, strengths and talents pervade our communities. It is, in my experience, the foundation of our nature to be of benefit to all through our words and actions. Does nature not reveal this basic pattern so thoroughly and undisputedly? Yet this basic human right, to express benefit to all, has been categorically and systematically denied by the institutions and culture ofempire. My experience is that greed and violence in humans, even the most subtle forms, are only symptoms of developmental pathologies that are systematically cultivated by imperial cultures and its institutions. Our cultural stories are really defined by prosperity and security. The prosperity story tells us that an eternally growing economy benefits everyone and that growth requires really wealthy people to invest and create jobs, and thus we should free up these rich people from taxes and regulations. Meanwhile we should cut away any benefit programs that might strip the poor of their motivation to contribute to society. Then we have a security story that tells of this dangerous world full of criminals and terrorists and foreign enemies who have got to be controlled or removed by strong police and military forces. This idea spreads scarcity at the same time as affirming economic inequality and legitimising the use of physical force to impose the will of rulers. It surely gives some degree of protection to the citizen, but more weirdly often affords a sense of righteousness to the rich and powerful.

Given the reach and tenacity of these stories, would it not it follow that effectively all we need to do to change the course of history is to change the stories that we live by? Whether we like to think so or not, the media continues to shape so much of our values for political gains, infectingevery deep sinew and fiber of our beings. Yet at thecore, of all the things we really wish for in the world, is there anyone who could truly represent those desires for us? My wish is to simply live my life as fully as I can. Where the line between work, rest and play has become so obscured that it is life itself to which I am employed. What has all this got to do with agriculture? Whilst global situations seem to have worsened parallel to my exposure to all the solutions oriented work of so many, perhaps the biggest change is in the ability to share our voices. The rapid ease in which we can tell our stories and connect across the ether in this time is unprecedented. It has never been easier to forge ahead true to our beliefs and dedicate ourselves to the benefit of all. It is the truth and passion of our stories, that resounding hope, that people long for. We all long for connection to the world around us, the people around us and the food that nourishes us. Regenerative agriculture is in the business of supplying more than just food. For it is the nourishment for the senses and mind, nourishment or the whole family experience that we bring. Regenerating community involves empowering and including everyone. With the combined gifts, strengths and talents in our communities we have all the creativity, passion and resources to start a new course.

The Permaculture space has done so much to benefit so many around the world, and yet it still remains very much a fringe movement. How do we normalize the movement? Are we listening and understanding the needs of the wider communities around us, who are also committed to be of benefit with the skills and means available to them? The danger of any collective identity is the sense of “us and them” mentality, which fails from the outset to connect with the whole. How are we to make agricultures that can restore the soils and ecosystems whilst rekindling local economy and community the new normal? One foundation that unites us all on the most basic level is food. Whilst the market for real food is continually growing, the larger pool of potential customers are not even aware they want this kind of food, this experience, to enrich their lives. Education, then, is a huge part of the long-term solution to benefit the whole. Fling open the gates to the farms, invite the people back in….

We have decided to self-publish our book, Making Small Farms Work, and aim to have it with you very soon. To achieve this we will be launching a crowd source campaign next week so you can pre-order a copy to raise the funds to print and ship the book to you. This will be a co-publishing project, a community effort to get this important resource out in the world. Please be aware the book will only be available direct from the farm, so if you are interested please read on...

​“Industrial chemical agriculture, producing twenty times as much dead eroding soil as food needed every year, is the most destructive industry of mankind - more so than fossil fuels or any mining. Developing a new biologically-based, and holistically managed, regenerative agriculture is imperative if civilization as we know it is to survive. I heartily recommend Richard's book for all socially conscious new and old farmers.”

The way the crowd source campaign works, early birds get a discount from the retail price; the quicker you purchase a copy the cheaper it will be. You can sign up below if you are interested to know exactly when the campaign launches. After the upcoming campaign copies will only be available directly from the farm in Sweden, and can be posted worldwide

This book offers fresh perspective for the Permaculture & Regenerative Agriculture space, and focuses solely on real-world stuff. A pragmatic and profitable approach to a farming life worth living. No nonsense and no abstract theory devoid of context. The aim is very much a 'how-to' approach to designing, installing and managing small farms effectively. Our own farm Ridgedale Permaculture is small at 10ha, but our approach to design is scalable from 1- 1000 ha. The book is stuffed full of colour images that explain everything described, as well as sharing financial details, spreadsheets, decision-making processes and other elements required to Making Small Farms Work.

Sign up if you are interested in Making Small Farms Work

“This might be one of the broadest overviews of designing regenerative farm systems aside from Mollison’s original “black book.” Richard’s book is likely to become an important manual of regenerative farming practices for those starting a farm of any scale. This is a timely and detailed account of crucial considerations for starting and managing a farm; I cannot think of anyone, from the beginner to seasoned farmer and homesteader, who doesn’t have something to learn from Richard’s work starting and managing Ridgedale Permaculture.”

Farmers interested in a more resilient future (The approach and strategies in this book are scalable from 1- 1000 Ha)

Permaculture Designers looking to empower their approach to design

Permaculture Educators looking to deepen their knowledge base

Homesteaders

Project leaders/ NGO workers

Landscape Designers who wish to broaden their horizons

Ecological/ Social Entrepreneurs

Anyone curious about learning about Ridgedale in detail

Anyone interested in real food

Why are we self-publishing?

We can get the book to you much faster than if we went with a publisher.

At our farm we go to great lengths to sell our premium farm produce directly to customers. We want to post you the book right from the farm.

We want to publish the book exactly how we created it, not edited to someone else's preferences

We want to facilitate translations to other languages though the community networks

A bit more context about the book

I have written this book to share some of my diverse experiences with regenerative design, farming and project management, as well as address the misconception that small farms are not viable. Our farm in Sweden has quickly become a beacon in Europe as a thriving example of effective farm scale Permaculture & Regenerative Agriculture. I attribute much of the success to several factors; primarily built upon our approach that draws and integrates practices from other ecological design platforms. For us, there are three main legs to the stool we use in our work. Besides Permaculture design we rely primarily on Holistic Management and Keyline design. We also draw a lot of inspiration from pioneering US farmer Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms.

Most of us interested in Permaculture & Regenerative Agriculture in Europe look abroad for inspiration. There is currently no literature in Europe covering the breadth of material presented in this book, and globally there are few financially viable examples of Permaculture farms. We also see few comprehensive cold climate examples, so it feels great to share our experiences from up here at 59ºN. Whilst we are situated in the most challenging economic and cultural context I have experienced anywhere on the globe, the approach to design shared in this book is relevant and instructive for people farming in any European climate zone. Indeed, amazing people have travelled from over 40 countries to the farm to participate in our pioneering education programs.

Making Small Farms Work does not aim to be encyclopedic or claim to offer all the answers. There are no radical innovations that will suddenly make farming an easy profession. It does, however, share an approach that looks far into the future, takes full responsibility for our actions and imparts deep insight and practical experience in the context of well planned and holistically managed operations. My primary educational objective is to support others into professional design and regenerative enterprises of their own, so this book is super pragmatic, down-to-earth and focused on getting on with it in a well thought out, well planned and holistically managed manner. Most books about design in this field are heavily theoretical. Not this one. This book is written for anyone wanting to farm in a way the restores the soil, reinvigorates local economy and food systems whilst maintaining a good livelihood for the farmer.

"Richard and Yohanna are an invasive species in Sweden; threatening to destroy our traditional culture ofhopelessness. This book may seem harmless, full of sweet pictures and practical advice for small farms, but it is actually spreading revolutionary seeds that jeopardise agribusiness and the alienation between people and nature. Romantic dreamers have been advocating rural livelihoods before, whilst struggling to make a living off the land. Ridgedale Permaculture seem to actually know what they are up to. These folks are walking the talk of Holistic Management, enabling them to manoeuvre within complexity without losing sight of what they really want to achieve. So, good people, if you are standing up for your rights as victims of your circumstances, stay away from these people, and this book."

The first translation will be into Swedish and Polish and the process is already begun. We will be running a separate campaign for the Swedish version which we will also print and distribute. We will announce details to the relevant people when we know them. We hope the Swedish copy will be available at the end of the summer. The Polish copy is being translated, printed and distributed by our friends at CoHabitat and should be available late this year. We are open to offers for translation into German, French and Spanish from professional translators and independent publishing houses, but please not contact us regarding this until the crowd source campaign is over as we will not be able to respond.

Thank you so much to all those who have supported us so far. This book is eagerly awaited by many folks and will only go to print (along with subsequent translations) if the campaign is a success. If you are excited about this, please consider sharing this page personally on your timeline/ relevant pages and let’s get it out there...

As the season ends at Ridgedale and the Autumn shadows dance long across the field we're heading into a more restful period and time to plan for 2016. Aside from maintaining livestock, some foreign education & design gigs we'll be planning the scaling up of productions as well as remodeling how we run this beacon project. One project that is about to begin is our book writing project.

Having been encouraged by a few friends and respected writers to commence this project, an invitation from a publisher prompted the penning of the contents we envisage. Now we'd like your input! There's a lot of books and info out there, and a lot of things are not so well documented. Farm Scale PC for example. Facts & figures. Detailed installation guides, etc. We want to hear what folks find they'd like more insight into. We want to hear from folks following our work to get a sense of what you'd like to see emphasized/ detailed, etc in this work. We think this represents a pretty comprehensive overview, but are keen to hear what folks feel is missing in the literature so we can respond in the most beneficial manner.

Ever heard that? I have heard & seen comments to this tune around the web here and there over the years, and have found myself on the short end of that stick a lot too as I have always valued making trainings I offer as accessible as possible. It’s a bold blanket statement that needs some context, reflection & unpacking. I reflected today that with a relatively high amount of direct experience offering intensive education in this field, sharing some of my perspectives could perhaps benefit others. Personally I am less and less interested in my indulging points of view rather than sharing my direct experience, so this is a rare post where I'll just let it fly. The www is seemingly saturated with what I feel are fruitless discussions that come about from this way of relating, but I’m choosing to share some of my experiences and points of view because I feel like there are a lot of mixed up ideologies represented in this field and that other "regenerative educators" may feel the same and not speak out so much. I brought this up as a discussion topic with our awesome crew at the farm because I feel like they are in a very good position to reflect upon this. (Having invested a substantial sum to come here for intensive education) Basically, the resulting conversation could be summarized as “it’s all down to Context”, and I wholeheartedly agree. Blanket statements are never usually beneficial in my experience. There is as much variation in content & caliber within Permaculture trainings as there are species on my farm and I see that this sort of statement probably has larger ideas behind it. We’re always interested in addressing the root causes… Someone suggested that perhaps a bigger underlying question was probably should all education be free? Good question. An important point is that if education is offered “free” then it’s usually funded by the state and educators still get paid, just from taxes. The Permaculture movement is too fringe for this to be the case universally, so it’s not so relevant at this point. You could argue that unless it’s free not enough people will be exposed to it. That’s possibly true too. But, hey, we have to work with the reality, or context, we find ourselves in. Idealism has led this movement all over the place for better and for worse I would say. This post has been stimulated by a message where someone proposed to work in exchange for a long internship program at the farm. We get a lot of emails like this. This doesn’t really work out well for us for 2 main reasons. Firstly, the income derived from our intensive long-term internships doesn’t even cover the activities we plan as learning experiences during this period (we’re designing juicy learning experiences whilst installing long term systems at the farm). Secondly, we plan our whole year ahead of the season, and at our farm we have assembled a Core Team ahead of time who we have selected to assist us in the maintenance and hard labor at the farm as we run full time educational programs during the summer and also project manage and train folks in all aspects of what’s going on at this small but very diverse and rapidly implemented project. For this reason we are not looking for volunteers at this point, as we have already planned effectively to know that we have the resources needed to make this place thrive. We see from our longer term intensive Internships that it takes people several weeks just to understand the basic systems and maintenance required in this place, during which a lot of time and micro management is invested in managing the details. Taking on people for a short time can bring a lot of benefits to folks, of that I have no doubt, but it needs people here dedicated full time to managing that. That’s not a resource we have, and not something we are looking to invest in at this time as we see the learning benefits of our long-term internship training outshines anything else we’ve ever done or participated in. Unskilled help is mostly useful for basic labour based tasks, and someone with the intention to swap work for learning is likely not exactly hoping to come and focus on these mundane everyday kind of chores; they’re pumped to take part in juicy tasks and learning opportunities which we have actually meticulously planned and timed to meet the objectives of our specific trainings which take place over a carefully constructed time frame. This has been designed within a very carefully planned process where we can lead people from scratch through very broad information and exposure in a beneficial way. Dropping into that just doesn’t yield actionable outcomes from our experience. We meet a lot of folks who have taken short trainings, watched a lot of videos, read a lot of books but have a hard time knowing how to begin for themselves. We have designed our trainings to facilitate this logjam and so we don’t feel so interested in investing our limited energy in folks wanting to drop in without a fully loaded sense of commitment. The feedback from the people who show up here and experience this place is what guides us. I’ll happily hear someone’s direct experience over indulged points of view any day… After an18 hr day grafting hard and risking a lot financially to really live into our commitment to make this a place that stands out as somewhere that can visibly demonstrate soil & ecosystem regeneration with a viable production based on good design whist providing a very high level of focused training these kind of requests can be a little provoking at times. We are specifically excited to support people wanting to go into professional design and people wanting to start their own regenerative enterprises (which we’re also very clear about in our website and info packs). This is certainly only a small proportion of folks connected with the Permaculture movement, and it’s whom we are specifically willing to go out of our way for as we see opportunities are very limited for these folks in this neck of the woods (and further afield). Sometimes some the requests we get feel a bit like, “hey, will you support me by freely offering your time, experience and financial investment so I can come learn at your super inspiring place?” I can’t think of any day-to-day circumstances where people would go to shops or pay for services with this mindset. Not really sure what the criteria are that makes folks think Permaculture education should be free, but feel like they may not really have a complete picture of what goes into being able to offer life changing trainings let alone shining examples of regeneration in action. We try to benefit as many as possible with our work, sharing what we can online in articles and daily updates on our FB page. Frankly we’re too busy to be able to give as much attention to this as we would like, and so recently have begun laying out the framework of a comprehensive book documenting our design approach through the lens of (mainly) this place. That’s another way we can see we can be of benefit to a wider audience. Really though you have to be here to take in the magic of this place, to see the work and preparation that goes into every single day, the sharing of the intimate “behind the scenes” aspects that we see are vital context & information for our budding interns. This can’t be shared so easily out of context, there’s just too much wrapped up in that. It’s a process that unfolds here over many weeks, deep & wide, and we have tailored it on many levels to prep dedicated folks with the information, strategies, decision making framework, design & planning tools (as well as a bunch of targeted hands on field experience) to go off and start their own enterprises with a wheelbarrow full of confidence and a clarified context for themselves. I’ve been dedicated to my learning journey since leaving home and living with travelling folk who taught me a lot about pragmatic approaches to meeting my basic needs. At 18 I studied Organic Crop Production at Ag College and have been dedicated to all aspects of regenerative design since that time (not finding many useful answers in conventional ag school). I’ve invested a lot of money, time and sheer effort in my learning journey; with (un)institutions, travelling, experiencing, designing, building and now am investing every ounce of my energy and fiscal resources in creating the sort of place that I wished I’d found on that incredible journey. A place doing what they’re chatting about. A place documenting, analyzing, recording and sharing it all wide openly. A place producing viable amounts of high quality food. A place managed holistically & efficiently. A place where people are empowered to be of benefit and valued for their unique strengths, gifts & talents. To make a place like this, where the learning experiences are carefully crafted by months of meticulous planning, financial risk and lack of sleep means they ain't gonna be free. Period. I have made a living educating, designing, building and installing for a long time now, building up a good reputation and successful business that has taken me to a lot of interesting places and brought a lot of people a lot of tangible benefits. This has taken extremely hard work, creativity, flexibility and patience. After many years I have built up the resources to start this farm, which has been dedicated in a large way to helping others. We haven’t exactly made it easy for ourselves by settling in one of the most expensive, heavily taxed & regulated countries in the world (where incredibly few young folks are moving out into the rural lands to set up small scale enterprises!) but hey, if we can make this fly then we really have a very good case to share! And so should I offer the trainings I have put together for free? Is that of most benefit? Not usually. That’s usually a one-way drain, and unsustainable frankly. I’ve been there and tried that and most often, to be frank, I’m the one losing out. At times I’ve earnt other folks a bunch of money when I’ve done the hard graft. Other times the work exchanges I’ve agreed on haven’t been honored in a very satisfactory manner. I’ve even had to go to court to claim payment when I went well out of my way to help someone far beyond my contract. I’ve also been well out of my way to help others who got stitched up, part of a longer story why Ridgedale even exists. For a couple of years I offered people who’d write who didn’t have so much cash the choice to tell me the lowest and highest amount they were willing to pay, and we’d work out what felt comfortable. As a very keen observer I often saw those folks turn up with new smart phones, fancy laptops and a lot of things I couldn’t afford and think… hang on a minute… Priorities. As it is we offer our trainings as cheaply as we know how. Nowadays the prices for our trainings here at our farm are much higher than when I set out, mostly because of the economy of the location I find myself settled in. Look up Swedish taxes. Could you make it work? My rates are higher than some and lower than others with similar level of experiences. I feel confident of the value I can offer when I look at the relative price of our trainings to others in the region and the relative design & practical experience offered, as well as the venue offered as a training location. Sure, you can find cheaper trainings, but with what experience, at what venue, eating what food? Consumers always have a responsibility. Do your research. Our trainings are cheaper than the price of backpacking in this beautiful country. Just the food we serve would cost more than the training if you ate the same fare in town (if there were any venues that sold this kind of quality!) We really understand that some folks just can’t afford trainings, which is why we have offered a very heavily subsidized spot on all our courses this year. This doesn’t really even cover the whole cost, ie, it costs us a little bit, but it’s a small way in which we are willing to extend our desire to be inclusive. When you direct someone to this option who is expressing a lack of funds and they don’t respond you start to understand patterns a little deeper. We also direct folks to the crowdsourcing site set up by our dear friend Christian, WeTheTrees, where I act as a course provider. Hey, why don’t YOU take responsibility and use your resources and networks creatively? I feel clear I’m doing my bit to benefit others… I’m not sure where this notion that Permaculture training should be free comes from, because whilst I can only speak for myself I’m sure it’s true for others too that the folks most worth learning from have spent a huge amount of money/ time (or both) in their own learning, experience and project development and are very busy so this must be reciprocated if you want that person’s time, attention and input. Simple. I think it’s probably fair to say that most folks have really no idea what it costs to run a really functional project/ farm if they have not done so themselves. For this reason I can understand where the idea of free trainings comes from. Whilst I’m moved by that basic yearning to be of benefit I cannot support it financially myself! All them little things add up very fast, particularly with a lot of people around and diverse enterprises like you will find on our farm. I spent 1500 Euro on screws in 6 months last year, ever done that? Add that up across the board and you soon find the income generated from offering incredible learning experiences doesn’t nearly cover the cost of creating them, and my time is not even factored into that. I give it my all, as any of my past course participants would surely agree with, because I know the future I’d like to grow old in depends on a lot more folks powered up working for the benefit of all. Sure, we benefit from the longer-term investments on our farm, and that’s the trade off, but it also isn’t as simple as that. Giving people the freedom to take on responsibilities and make their own projects usually costs us a LOT. Timing practical implementation with fixed training dates doesn’t always pay off our end! Making interesting things that cost us a lot of small parts and break after a few months is far from ideal. Broken tools, worn parts and decreased life of infrastructure. It’s super hard to factor in the impact of a large amount of people in a place, but one thing is clear, it costs more than you’d hope. We came to the conclusion last year that things cost around 30% more than planned for, however well they were seemingly planned. And we’re pretty good at planning/ managing if I say so myself. But it’s these things that need to be factored in to fulfill our specific objectives; making a thriving and profitable regenerative agriculture simultaneously alongside a rich & supportive learning habitat. Increasingly today with online trainings, more and more books and online resources, there is so much people can take freely. There’s nearly everything you need freely available out there already. Use the resources at your fingertips. These make up all the nuts and bolts, the ingredients and components in design. The most important aspects cannot be shared in this manner. The things that happen human to human, within clear contextual surroundings are really the impactful things. The human sharing, the careful measured advice & mentoring, the sharing of the intimate details, the planning, the decisions, the finances. These are the things that actually make a big difference. Land based design is essentially the easy bit, lets face it. Management of people/ finances/ resources, decision making, context; this is what actually makes it work and holds it all up. This we share so openly and honestly with all that come here, and whilst its perhaps not the aspects most folks get excited by when they get engaged by Permaculture or Regenerative Agriculture, it’s the weak link in most chains I’ve ever seen. It’s the intimate sharing that has often saved clients and participants of our trainings a lot of time, money & effort. Anytime that happens we see big value in our work. That makes us clear why we put in such long hours with so much care and attention in so many places. I don’t think I’d recommend anyone setting out as farmer, project manager and educator simultaneously unless you really know what you’re in for. I do it because I just love it and I’ve currently got the energy for it. I see so much benefit pour forth daily, and that’s all I want for myself, and all I want for anyone. So I’m here, showing up, ready. For the folks that do come here and participate in our trainings (as well as when we offer trainings abroad) we have very highly consistent feedback that we offer very good value for money. This has often been calibrated with feedback from folks that have attended other trainings beforehand and thus we see a wider picture and frame of reference for what we’re doing. There are long established ways to learn for free; WWOOFing and the like. People relate VERY mixed experiences, but one thing for sure is that you couldn’t get the level of intensive education we offer here if you’re not paying for it, I have never heard of anyone anywhere on the planet doing that. You can take working Internships at incredible places but you certainly won’t get class time focused on design and your individual needs, you’ll work like a farmer. This is invaluable and definitely a great option, but it brings me back to Context. It totally depends what you’re looking for. If you want me to sit with you and fast track you through using digital design software, ponder over your designs and give feedback all afternoon and teach things in a structured coherent way tailored to your learning style then it’s only going to work if the exchange is reciprocal. So what are the current options for folks lacking financial capital who want to come and learn here with us? Well, we have 6 month Core Team roles every year, open to anyone to apply. We offer incredible food and your own room and a chance to take part in some of the trainings in exchange for managing particular aspects of the farm. To see the whole “active” season in this way is a deep & rich learning experience where folks naturally get exposed to everything going on here. You can look on the website and what we offer and what we expect and see if this is an option for you. We may take on a couple of winter managers this season, which is a very different role, but a learning opportunity in it’s own right. We’ll let you know… You can also keep up to date with our blog/ facebook page where we offer a heavily subsidized spot on every training. If you are genuinely lacking funds and really want this then take responsibility! We’re always most likely to offer our time and energy to folks we see will benefit most from it. We’re not into spoon feeding someone who just isn’t stepping up. Something that has been super useful to empowering my own relationship to capital is the fluid and dynamic clarification set forth by Ethan & Gregory in their work defining Regenerative Enterprise (http://www.appleseedpermaculture.com/8-forms-of-capital/) We are all trading different forms of capital in everything we do, and we are super happy to remain flexible and open in every moment to whatever feels of most benefit. What I have witnessed in my journey is a lot of distress around money in this movement. How do we empower our relationship to money? That is a much more potent question to me than how do we design a new system that may or may not take it’s place. Money is like water in my experience. I’m not going to get into that here, just planting the idea that we can all choose how we interact and respond to whatever arises for us moment to moment. For those of you burning up for deep & insightful education who don’t have fiscal resources to spare, you’ll be happy to know our current aim within the next couple of years is to transition towards a 6 month long free internship here at the farm. This will take the place of having a Core Team here supporting us and Interns coming for intensive education mixed with field experience implementing systems. This is partly because we value being able to offer that, and partly as we will have installed the majority of the systems and be looking more at maintaining and running the various enterprises end to end. I feel like I will always value a good amount of time in the “classroom” getting deep into the nuts and bolts of design, because I just love it, and so this time and financial investment will have to be offset with farm labour. Real farm labour. I imagine at that point we will have trial weeks and folks will commit their time and travel costs not knowing whether they’ll make that seasons cut. Whilst that won’t work out so great for some, it will likely bring some mutuality in return for all we invest, and a once in a lifetime learning adventure for those that are fully committed and responsive. If you want something “for free” you gonna have to take full responsibility. That’s one thing that for sure needs to be reciprocal. There is no free lunch.

Sinking Egg Mobile...

This is the second of a new series where we post things that don't go to plan on the farm. Life here at Ridgedale is amazing, establishing a pioneering project in this beautiful land with incredible folks coming from around the world to contribute their unique gifts, strengths and talents in an intensive & caring learning environment. As with any farm or project of this nature, things are not always smooth. In todays world of image saturated social media its mostly polished images and what is going well for folks that is shared. We're here to serve as a unique and potent learning site as well as a productive farm and so we feel it is our responsibility to share the sides often hidden from the public eye as well as all the rest. This is where learning really happens, this is where the creative solutions swell up so naturally in everyone committed to be of benefit and frankly we need more of it. When things die or get sick, break or cause shocking unintended consequences, this is where deep learning can occur. The challenges and failures are equally meaningful and stimulating as the frequent triumphs and amazement that goes on in this place. We just love it. The total openness with which we run this place, from sharing our business, decisions, perspectives and personal lives with out Interns and training participants is one very clear aspect of what makes this place so special. We hope sharing these experiences will be of benefit to those of you who follow our activities from around the world. We also hope it inspires more to write up and share their challenges & failures; it's a great way we can serve each other...

Trouble with our Gers and storm winds...

This is the first of a new series we intend to post of things that don't go well on the farm. Life here at Ridgedale is amazing, establishing a pioneering project in this beautiful land with incredible folks coming from around the world to contribute their unique gifts, strengths and talents in an intensive & caring learning environment. As with any farm or project of this nature, things are not always smooth. In todays world of image saturated social media its mostly polished images and what is going well for folks that is shared. We're here to serve as a unique and potent learning site as well as a productive farm and so we feel it is our responsibility to share the sides often hidden from the public eye as well as all the rest. This is where learning really happens, this is where the creative solutions swell up so naturally in everyone committed to be of benefit and frankly we need more of it. When things die or get sick, break or cause shocking unintended consequences, this is where deep learning can occur. The challenges and failures are equally meaningful and stimulating as the frequent triumphs and amazement that goes on in this place. We just love it. The total openness with which we run this place, from sharing our business, decisions, perspectives and personal lives with out Interns and training participants is one very clear aspect of what makes this place so special. We hope sharing these experiences will be of benefit to those of you who follow our activities from around the world. We also hope it inspires more to write up and share their challenges & failures; it's a great way we can serve each other...

Students at Ridgedale learning about Pasture Monitoring during a Holistic Management training, 2014

One thing missing in the sphere of Permaculture & Regenerative Ag. is useful quantifiable documentation. Be it financials, results of actions on the actual land; this movement suffers from the promulgation of ideas & concepts that are not necessarily tried and tested in the experience of the advocate. It's a problem we seek to address in general by documenting & sharing all that happens at the farm, both successful & unsuccessful. We initiated research that will grow and continue in the following years. As a demonstration site we put pressure on ourselves to actually demonstrate the results of what we are talking about & doing and we are intent on following that up.

Below you will find some of the initial survey work began by our awesome farm manager from 2014, Kate. This work will continue and broaden in this and following years. We use a weather station installed at the farm to allow us to monitor and somewhat account for the circumstantial evidence that perhaps debases so many claims of "observed" results.

Congrat's to Ben & Fotini who we decided to offer subsidized spots for our August PDC and Internship program at ridgedale permaculture

Ben joins us from Australia, having been living and working at an eco village in South East Queensland, Australia, where he led up the kitchen gardens. Having been teaching Outdoor Education and Sustainability for the past 5 years in a range of school settings over in Australia, this summer Ben is planning of spending 3-4 months travelling parts of Europe, visiting eco-villages and seeing what and how people are approaching land education over there. Happy to have you join us for the PDC Ben!

Fotini will be joining us for the 8 Week Internship program from Greece. She has studied biology, organic farming and herbal medicine and I has been involved in various different projects in the fields of sustainable food production, herbal medicine and community activism, living and working in eco-communities, participating in community garden groups and grass roots initiatives related to health and food sovereignty over the past 10 years.

Fotini is the co-founder of the Nea Guinea non-profit organization (NPO) based in Athens, Greece, that has been in operation since 2009, focusing mainly on the re-appropriation of our everyday lives in terms of food, health, energy and shelter. She has been organizing a number of projects developing different alternative practices and techniques on the above subjects and also promoting these practices as tools for increasing self-sufficiency and resilience of people and communities.

"Our projects aim to inform, educate, encourage and support people in redefining their basic everyday needs and getting actively involved in the production process in order to cover these needs, based on their own knowledge and their own resources, becoming less dependent on the goods and services of the global market."

Fortini took a PDC with Rod Everett and Mill Millichap, (my own original teachers; amazing folks!) then a Regenerative Agriculture and Land Management Course with Darren J. Doherty and a TTC with Rosemary Morrow, and is now starting a Diploma with the Permaculture Assosiation of UK. We feel like Fotini's commitment to her pathway is obvious and feel happy to be able to flesh out & extend on her previous training experiences in a beneficial manner.

Congrat's to you both, and thanks for everyone who went in for the opportunity; something we will continue to do we think, so stay tuned. Looking forward to an intense and engaging year. Look forward to sharing all we can via media for those of you who won't be able to join us on the ground….

2014 was an incredible pioneering year for us at Ridgedale Permaculture. We hit the ground running and with an awesome Core Team from around the world and all the amazing people who came through the farm we achieved so much both on the land and in education, and gained support of over 10,000 followers to our Fb page Thanks so much to all of you who contribute to this amazing place. We have so much to be grateful for, and it is such a joy and pleasure to be able to share our experience and learning with some of the brightest minds and kindest hearts we've ever met. We have always valued making our Educational activities as accessible as possible; one of our main objectives is supporting as many people as possible into farming & land based enterprises and professional regenerative design. We've been doing pretty good with it; yet settled at our Swedish home base where we have to operate in this economy (not exactly set up to support small, local regenerative enterprises!) We realize many around the world just can't afford to make it to our trainings. Our unique Internship program is cheaper than the cost of backpacking in the area and participants from around the world have consistently reflected the value of this program compared to others abroad. But we have still been considering how we can support low income folks who have the passion and commitment, who are dedicating their lives to regenerating their soils and communities. Yohanna & Richard have decided to offer super low cost placement's for both our next Permaculture Design Course and our pioneering training; 8 Week Farm Scale & Professional Permaculture Internship.

THIS OFFER IS OPEN UNTIL 25TH March 2015...

If you are interested in this opportunity please read & consider this carefully. We find one of the problems with our digital era is people jump onto links, etc, without considering the whole. This opportunity is to facilitate and support people who genuinely have limited fiscal resources to participate in this life changing education. It's not a chance of a "freebie." If you want to participate you need to be committed to the training dates and if selected pay the full fee within 10 days of being selected. We've spelled it out pretty clearly, but see that a lot of folks respond to posts without having even read them! If you don't follow the simple instructions or write to us after the date above you're unlikely to hear from us!

We can think of at least 180 great forest garden & perennial crops for cold climate Sweden. Want to hear about them Perennial plants and crops offer a low energy, oil & resource input based foundation for future-proof agricultures. By default if an agriculture is to be called regenerative the bottom line is that it must be soil building, not soil depleting. Relentless deep tillage & poor soinagement contributes to the majority of the 10 tons of topsoil per person lost every year on planet water.

2014 was an incredible year for us at Ridgedale Permaculture. We hit the ground running and with an awesome Core Team from around the world and all the amazing people who came through the farm we achieved so much both on the land and in education, and gained support of over 10,000 followers to our Fb page Thanks so much to all of you who contribute to this amazing place. We have so much to be grateful for, and it is such a joy and pleasure to be able to share our experience and learning with some of the brightest minds and kindest hearts we've ever met. We have always valued making our Educational activities as accessible as possible; one of our main objectives is supporting as many people as possible into farming & land based enterprises and professional regenerative design. We've been doing pretty good with it; yet settled at our Swedish home base where we have to operate in this economy (not exactly set up to support small, local regenerative enterprises!) we realize many around the world just can't afford to make it to our trainings. So we've been considering how we can support low income folks who have the passion and commitment, who are dedicating their lives to regenerating their soils and communities. So Yohanna & Richard have decided to offer super low cost placement's for both our next Permaculture Design Course and our pioneering training; 8 Week Farm Scale & Professional Permaculture Internship.

This is a brief reflection on our recent trip to Veracruz, Mexico. We went over to run a 10 day Regenerative Ag workshop at the incredible Rancho San Ricardo in tandem with working on design for the 134 Ha ranch Granja Nut, both of which are connected to La Margarita Sugar Mill which services approximately 110,000 Ha of plantation. With the future of the sugar industry in uncertainty and with regional soils & waters in bad shape, the pioneering owner is molding a vision to demonstrate diversification that meets local needs in terms of food, fiber and energy in a way that fosters and benefits the multitude of people inherently connected to the mill and the surrounding economies.

Reflecting back on our first season on the ground establishing Agroforestry, Holistic Planned Grazing, Kitchen Gardens and various other systems from scratch. It has been an amazing ride, so many incredible people from around the world made this possible; good team, clear design & a lot of well coordinated hard work.

6 months transforming a run down old Swedish farm into a thriving Permaculture hub

We've been using these Eco Fans for many years, a great example of appropriate tech. If you use wood to heat spaces or cook, these simple devices are super effective at spreading the heat more evenly, from our experience even able to blow heat up stairs and along 20m long canal boats.

There's nothing quite so rewarding as home made cheese from a hand milked cow out over the yard. It's quite easy to make small amounts of cheese at home, we've experimented with various soft & hard cheeses and even if you don't happen to have a cow it's very easy to make with good milk from a farmer or store.

These first 6 months at Ridgedale have been epic to say the least. Good design, amazing people and the combined expression to be of benefit have led to the seemingly effortless unrolling of the design for this land. Here's a brief photo stream of some of the happenings at the farm this summer.

Thank you so much to all who contributed to this first year establishing what has quickly become regarded as Scandinavia's leading example of farm-scale Permaculture, hosting several hundred people from 25 countries this summer. 2014 has been a super busy time for us, we have hosted 20 weeks of Internships and 3 PDC's from the farm as well as running trainings in Belarus, Thailand and twice in Mexico. On top of managing our farm development we have also conducted a dozen farm/ property consultancies and are looking forward to the winter "down- time" this climate offers.

We learnt and shared so much this year. We feel clear that by opening up our farm gates to those who are serious about regenerative design & enterprise we can leverage these initial stages of setting up the farm to benefit so many. Thank you for all who have got involved, either by participating in our trainings or following our activities online. We are doing this together to help inspire others into action regenerating their soils, land & communities.

We have always planned to share our financials, however see clearly this is not of most benefit out of context online. We openly share all aspects of our farm & design enterprises with participants of trainings, as we see this is most useful to upcoming folks, so have decided to keep things like this.

Having a clear vision & design, effective organization and planning and getting tangible experience establishing these systems is all anyone needs to start. We have been reflecting a lot throughout this season and will be announcing our 2015 schedule in the coming weeks. Our Internship program will be a little different next season as we are scaling up production with the aim of generating income from the farm enterprises next year. One of our objectives has been to generate a family income from the farm within 3 yrs and so our focus will gradually shift to running & maintaining effective local food systems. If you're interested in the unique learning programs we offer then why not join our mailing list and we can keep you updated through the winter. Whatever we decide to do, it's going to be awesome!

Kate, one of our awesome pioneering farm managers, has been conducting various research as we develop this farm project; both to help us make more informed management decisions in our grazing plan as well as allow us to demonstrate what impact our actions have on the land over time. So much in the Permaculture world seems based on circumstantial evidence; and in response we aim to design, implement, monitor and refine what we do based on measurable and replicable methods. Moving to a new land requires endless observation, recording, researching & monitoring the impact of our actions, so here's a glimpse into how we have begun doing that here at the farm. We have around 40 species in our very varied pasture, with large variances in soil. Whilst the research conducted so far is just the beginning, it has been incredibly beneficial in terms of really getting a good sense of what we are actually working with. Bravo Kate, we are so happy to have had you with us here for this incredible first season. It feels so important more folks in the alternative agriculture/ permaculture world start producing useful data for the benefit of all, thank you so much for the integrity & diligence you contribute.

Here's a little fly-by over the farm center today. Incredible to reflect on the last 4 months where we have been joined by awesome people from all corners of the globe getting deep into education and action during this unique time establishing all systems from scratch. Empowering other's to manage their lives holistically and design solutions to bring their dreams forth is a major part of the Holistic Context we manage towards, and something we are excited to be able to share with so many bright, intelligent & gifted folks. It's been an epic ride so far!

5 weeks on the ground and the farm patterning set in a beneficial way for generations...

With just 3 weeks left of Internship #2 and our final PDC of the season around the corner we are surely looking forward to a restful winter to recuperate and plan for next season; with more animals, new trainings and new people bringing knowledge, skills and passion to everything that happens here at Ridgedale. We will be posting more about the opportunities for Core Team roles for 2015 (sign up to the Newsletter here) with more spaces for a bigger team to make next year even more incredible. Stay posted, we'll be reviewing the year and blogging a lot more over the winter to inform & support others who wish to undertake a similar journey.

It’s almost like the weather knows, the winds arrived today. As the change awaits us tomorrow we are being moved towards it with a blustery nudge from the direction of Norway. Perhaps the winds represent a much bigger change than just here on our little farm in Scandinavia, perhaps they signify something more complex, more global… Presentation Day has arrived.

Day 12, the course is approaching it's end, a massive amount of creative outpourings as we go deeper into design projects, explore Regenerative Enterprises and make the most of this glorious Swedish weather....

Each day of this PDC has been journalled here on the blog by Daniel McGough. Deep into design projects we delve deeper into cleaning waste and cycling nutrients as we draw closer to the end of this awesome training...